Butley at the Duchess Theatre, WC2

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Dominic West triumphs as Butley and Penny Downie blushes to orderMarilyn Kingwell

Libby Purves

Last updated at 12:01AM, June 7 2011

Now here’s an actor at full stretch — timed to a hair, using the space, mixing
subtlety into broad comedy and absurdity into emotion. You might not expect
a star whose fame rests most strongly on being a dour TV cop in The Wire
to triumph in Simon Gray’s autobiographical caricature of a disaffected
1970s English lecturer and walking emotional disaster. But Dominic West is
amazing.

It’s a tricky play, much of it a two-hander in a messy study, as Butley
torments his former pupil and flatmate, the ambitious academic Joey (Martin
Hutson), with only interruptions from other characters to set